Best Cheap Companies To Invest In 2015

Yesterday, I wrote a piece where I listed the three categories that my investments typically fall into: Franchises, Cheap and Good Stocks, and Cheap Asset Stocks. I also described a 4th category called Special Situations that I occasionally participate in when I find an interesting idea. The vast majority of my investments fall into the first three categories, but recently, I've looked at two interesting special situations that have a few similarities.

Dell (DELL) and Ebix (EBIX) are two stocks that I've been following for some time. Both have shown up in Joel Greenblatt's screen for months, and I've considered both to be potential investment candidates. Both have CEO's with large ownership stakes, both have negative sentiment surrounding the stock (for different reasons), both look cheap using basic value metrics, and both have traded above their deal price, signaling the market might expect a higher bid.

I own Dell, but unfortunately let Ebix pass by after not being comfortable with their accounting. (This is a lesson in and of itself: when bad news causes a stock to drop dramatically, the market often over discounts the news. The market has a hard time efficiently pricing these types of scenarios, and in my experience, the initial reaction is often the worst (BP during the oil spill, HLF after the Ackman short announcement, etc...). The market tends to price things toward the worst case scenario end of the spectrum, but the worst case often does not materialize.

10 Best Low Price Stocks To Invest In 2016: USG Corporation(USG)

USG Corporation, through its subsidiaries, engages in the manufacture and distribution of building materials worldwide. The company offers gypsum and related products, including gypsum wallboard, joint compounds used for finishing wallboard joints, cement boards, glass mat sheathing, gypsum fiber panels, poured gypsum underlayments, ultra light panels, and various construction plaster products. Its gypsum products are used in various building applications to finish the interior walls, ceilings, and floors in residential, commercial, and institutional constructions, and repair and remodel constructions. The company also produces gypsum-based products for agricultural and industrial customers to use in various applications, including soil conditioning, road repair, fireproofing, and ceramics. In addition, it manufactures ceiling grid and acoustical ceiling tile for electrical and mechanical systems, and air distribution and maintenance applications. USG Corporation distribut es its gypsum products through specialty wallboard distributors, building materials dealers, home improvement centers and other retailers, contractors, and a network of distributors. Further, it distributes other manufacturers? gypsum wallboard, joint compound and other gypsum products, as well as drywall metal, insulation, and roofing products and accessories. The company sells its products under SHEETROCK, DUROCK, FIBEROCK, SECUROCK, LEVELROCK, RED TOP, IMPERIAL, DIAMOND, SUPREMO, AURATONE, ACOUSTONE, DONN, DX, FINELINE, CENTRICITEE, CURVATURA, and COMPASSO brands. The company was founded in 1901 and is based in Chicago, Illinois.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Eric Volkman]

  She also serves as chairman of the United States Steel and Carnegie Pension Fund, and on that organization's investment committee. Outside of U.S. Steel, she sits on the board of directors of USG (NYSE: USG  ) and the Pennsylvania Business Council, among other entities.

• [By Holly LaFon]

  Pimco managing director Mark Kiesel mentions Whirlpool (WHR), Weyerhaeuser (WY), USG (USG), Toll Brothers (TOLL) and KB Home (KBH) as good plays on housing:�

Best Cheap Companies To Invest In 2015: Whole Foods Market Inc.(WFM)

Whole Foods Market, Inc. engages in the ownership and operation of natural and organic food supermarkets. The company offers produce, seafood, grocery, meat and poultry, bakery, prepared foods and catering, coffee and tea, nutritional supplements, and vitamins. It also provides specialty products, such as beer, wine, and cheese; body care and educational products, such as books; and floral, pet, and household products. As of February 9, 2011, the company operated 302 stores in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. Whole Foods Market, Inc. was founded in 1978 and is headquartered in Austin, Texas.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Alanna Petroff]

  3. Earnings focus: Sprint (S) is among the big name companies posting results before the opening bell. Kraft Foods (KRFT) and Whole Foods (WFM) will report after the close.

• [By WWW.DAILYFINANCE.COM]

  Patrick T. Fallon/Bloomberg/Getty Images Plenty of stocks go up and down in any given week. The gainers inspire us to keep investing. The decliners keep greed in check while reminding us about the risks of the equity markets. Let's go over some of last week's best and worst performers. King Digital Entertainment (KING) -- Up 20 percent last week We're not playing "Candy Crush Saga" the way we used to, but some of King Digital's other mobile games are starting to show signs of life. Shares of the casual-gaming leader moved higher after it posted quarterly results. King Digital is no longer a one-trick pony. Gross bookings for non-"Candy Crush" games have soared 167 percent over the past year and now make up nearly half of King Digital's total gross bookings. The diversification is paying off. King Digital referred to App Annie data showing that its market share of worldwide revenue generated from casual games in the top 100 titles is 49 percent on iOS and 44 percent on Android. Whole Foods Market (WFM) -- Up 19 percent last week The country's leading organic grocer moved higher after posting better-than-expected quarterly results. Sales climbed 9 percent to $3.3 billion, fueled by expansion and a 3.1 percent uptick in comparable sales. Whole Foods Market's profit of 35 cents a share exceeded analyst estimates for the second quarter in a row. Things aren't perfect. Margins contracted once again with net income failing to grow as quickly as sales. Whole Foods is facing competition as mainstream grocers and discount department store chains stock up on cheaper organic food. However, with shares trading 19 percent lower so far this year -- even after last week's pop -- it's easy to see Whole Foods come through with a big move up on a refreshing earnings beat. Kate Spade (KATE) -- Up 12 percent last week The market for premium handbags has proven challenging for Coach (COH) over the past two years, but the same can't be said about smaller rival Kate Spade.

• [By Maxx Chatsko]

  Peach-mango salsa contains 0% of your recommended daily iron content, but if you purchase it from Whole Foods Market (NASDAQ: WFM  ) you'll get a full dose of irony. The fast-growing organic grocery chain -- a champion of the "Right to Know" movement attempting to pressure biotech food ingredients to come with labels -- has found itself in the midst of a massive food recall that has also affected Wal-Mart Stores (NYSE: WMT  ) , Wegmans, and Trader Joe's. Wawona Packing Company in California has issued a recall on fruits sold to hundreds of stores nationwide from June 1 to July 21 after the food tested positive for Listeria contamination. If investors aren't aware already, food recalls can have severe detrimental consequences for a company's bottom line.

Best Cheap Companies To Invest In 2015: Hewlett-Packard Company(HPQ)

Hewlett-Packard Company and its subsidiaries provide products, technologies, software, solutions, and services to individual consumers and small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs), as well as to the government, health, and education sectors worldwide. Its Personal Systems Group segment offers commercial personal computers (PCs), consumer PCs, workstations, calculators and other related accessories, and software and services for the commercial and consumer markets. The company?s Services segment provides consulting, outsourcing, and technology services to infrastructure, applications, and business process domains. Its Imaging and Printing Group segment provides consumer and commercial printer hardware, supplies, media, and scanning devices, such as inkjet and Web solutions, laser jet and enterprise solutions, managed enterprise solutions, graphics solutions, and printer supplies. The company?s Enterprise Servers, Storage, and Networking segment offers industry standard s ervers, business critical systems, storage platforms, and networking products, including switches, routers, wireless LAN, and TippingPoint network security products. Its HP Software segment provides enterprise IT management software, information management solutions, and security intelligence/risk management solutions. The company?s HP Financial Services segment offers leasing, financing, utility programs, and asset recovery services; and financial asset management services for enterprise customers, as well as specialized financial services to SMBs, and educational and governmental entities. Hewlett-Packard Company also provides business intelligence solutions that enable businesses to standardize on consistent data management schemes, connect and share data across the enterprise, and apply analytics, as well as licenses its specific technology to third parties. The company was founded in 1939 and is headquartered in Palo Alto, California.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By vinaysingh]

  I have come across a sea of analyses discussing the turnaround story of Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) since the time this behemoth came under the control of CEO Meg Whitman. Meg took over the rein of a struggling HP after the Autonomy deal debacle and resolved to turnaround HP in a period of approximately 5 years. It has almost been more than 2 years and positive numbers around y-o-y growth, dividend etc. and strengthening presence of the company in core business areas already indicate a strong comeback.

• [By rsconsultant]

  As the personal machine business is shrinking, fittings giants like International Business Machines (IBM) and Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) are diversifying into fresher areas to accomplish development. Among the most talked-about markets in IT solutions are digital security and distributed computing. Both these segments have been developing at a brisk pace. IBM and HP, as well as other huge companies such as Oracle and Microsoft are also moving into these markets.

• [By Dan Caplinger]

  Bucking the downward trend is Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ  ) , which soared 13% after CEO Meg Whitman said last night in the tech giant's quarterly report that her turnaround plan remains on track. The company posted impressive gains in cash flow from operations, and even though overall profit has not yet fully recovered, investors appear to be giving Whitman more latitude to see her long-range strategy play itself out. With initiatives in cloud computing, big data, and the mobile industry, HP is doing its best to move beyond its PC roots and create better growth opportunities for the future.

Best Cheap Companies To Invest In 2015: Bank of America Corporation(BAC)

Bank of America Corporation, a financial holding company, provides banking and nonbanking financial services and products to individuals, small- and middle-market businesses, large corporations, and governments in the United States and internationally. The company?s Deposits segment generates savings accounts, money market savings accounts, certificate of deposits, and checking accounts; and Global Card Services segment provides the U.S. consumer and business card, consumer lending, international card and debit card services. Its Home Loans & Insurance segment offers consumer real estate products and services, including mortgage loans, reverse mortgages, home equity lines of credit, and home equity loans. It also provides property, disability, and credit insurance. The company?s Global Commercial Banking segment offers lending products, including commercial loans and commitment facilities, real estate lending, leasing, trade finance, short-term credit, asset-based lending, and indirect consumer loans; and capital management and treasury solutions, such as treasury management, foreign exchange, and short-term investing options. Its Global Banking & Markets segment provides financial products, advisory services, settlement, and custody services; debt and equity underwriting and distribution, merger-related advisory services, and risk management products; and integrated working capital management and treasury solutions. The company?s Global Wealth & Investment Management segment offers investment and brokerage services, estate management, financial planning services, fiduciary management, credit and banking expertise, and asset management products. Bank of America Corporation serves customers through a network of approximately 5,900 banking centers and 18,000 automated teller machines. It was formerly known as NationsBank Corporation and changed its name on October 1, 1998. Bank of America Corporation was founded in 1874 and is based in Charlott e, North Carolina.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By David Hanson and Matt Koppenheffer]

  Recently, Bruce Berkowitz of the Fairholme Fund got bullish on financial stocks right around the same time that John Paulson got bearish and sold positions in Citigroup (NYSE: C  ) , Bank of America (NYSE: BAC  ) and JPMorgan Chase (NYSE: JPM  ) .

• [By Rich Smith]

  AFP/Getty Images/Frederic J. Brown Over the past decade or so, waves of computer-aided identity theft have washed over the U.S. Since the first big hack attack on ChoicePoint in 2005, through more recent data breaches at Evernote, LivingSocial, and now the massive Target (TGT) breach involving 110 million pieces of data (just the third-largest data breach in U.S. history, by the way), companies have more or less figured out a routine for dealing with data breaches. You notify the FBI. You (eventually) notify your customers. And you replace everybody's credit cards. With the latest breach at Target, that process is already well under way. Megabanks like JP Morgan Chase (JPM), Bank of America (BAC), Wells Fargo (WFC), and Citigroup (C) have collectively handed out millions of new cards, with new card numbers, to customers whose data may have been compromised by the Target data breach. Last week, the Independent Community Bankers of America issued a release confirming its members -- small banks around the country -- have "reissued more than 4 million credit and debit cards." To ensure that credit and debit card numbers that hacker stole from Target and Neiman Marcus will soon be useless, ICBA member bankers absorbed costs in excess of $40 million. And as a result of their quick action, says the group, "community banks' initial fraud costs were relatively low, with less than 1 percent of community bank customers reporting fraud." So, while the Target breach and the "110 million pieces of data lost" sounds bad, the damage probably won't be as bad as you think. In fact, you can use this epic data fail to your advantage. You Have to Set up New Auto-Payments When your bank sends you a new credit or debit card, it will come with a new number to replace the one that Target lost. Your old number has been canceled. This means any automatic payment plans you've set up -- your subscriptions and the card numbers that you have preselected for payments on Amazon (AMZN), P

• [By Amanda Alix]

  Mortgage-related muddles have been taking up a lot of headline space recently as banks take it on the chin about their laxity in upholding a $25 billion foreclosure settlement, and mortgage-mess maker Bank of America (NYSE: BAC  ) faces two active lawsuits concerning its treatment of homeowners and investors.

• [By Matt Thalman]

  The Dow's financial stocks are also taking a hit today. Shares of Bank of America (NYSE: BAC  ) are down 0.8%, JPMorgan Chase (NYSE: JPM  ) has lost 1% and American Express (NYSE: AXP  ) is 1.1% lower. One reason the banks may be slipping is a report from Oppenheimer analyst Chris Kotowski stating that mortgage-banking revenues declined 12.5% year over year during the second quarter, while investment-banking revenues rose 33% and trust, brokerage, and asset-management fees climbed 12.8%. The problem with these numbers is that the mortgage side of banks' businesses fell this year before rates rose for the full quarter, as they really only increased during part of May and June. This may lead investors to believe that in the third quarter the banks' mortgage businesses will again decline -- and perhaps by much more than just 12.5%.�

Best Cheap Companies To Invest In 2015: Capstone Turbine Corporation(CPST)

Capstone Turbine Corporation develops, manufactures, markets, and services turbine generator sets and related parts for use in stationary distributed power generation applications. Its stationary distributed power generation applications include cogeneration combined heat and power (CHP), integrated (CHP), resource recovery, and secure power, as well as combined cooling, heat, and power; and its products are used as battery charging generators for hybrid electric vehicle applications. The company primarily offers microturbine units, subassemblies, and components. It also provides various accessories, including rotary gas compressors with digital controls, heat recovery modules for CHP applications, dual mode controllers that allow automatic transition between grid connect and stand-alone modes, batteries with digital controls for stand-alone/dual-mode operations, power servers for multipacked installations, and protocol converters for Internet access, as well as frames, ex haust ducting, and installation hardware. Further, it remanufactures microturbine engines; and provides after-market parts and services, scheduled and unscheduled maintenance, and factory and on-site training services. The company?s microturbines can be fueled by various sources, including natural gas, propane, sour gas, landfill or digester gas, kerosene, diesel, and biodiesel. It primarily sells its products directly to end users, as well as through distributors in North America, Asia, Australia, Europe, the Russian Federation, and South America. Capstone Turbine Corporation was founded in 1988 and is based in Chatsworth, California.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Roberto Pedone]

  Capstone Turbine (CPST) develops, manufactures, markets, and services microturbine technology solutions for use in stationary distributed power generation applications worldwide. This stock closed up 2.5% to $1.22 in Tuesday's trading session.

  Tuesday's Range: $1.19-$1.23
  52-Week Range: $1.07-$2.60
  Tuesday's Volume: 6.73 million
  Three-Month Average Volume: 3.66 million

  From a technical perspective, CPST bounced notably higher here right off some near-term support at $1.20 with strong upside volume flows. This stock has been uptrending marginally over the last week or so with heavy upside volume flows. This move has now pushed shares of CPST within range of triggering near-term breakout trade. That trade will hit if CPST manages to take out Tuesday's intraday high of $1.23 to its recent gap-down-day high of $1.30 with high volume.

  Traders should now look for long-biased trades in CPST as long as it's trending above its recent low of $1.11 and then once it sustains a move or close above those breakout levels with volume that hits near or above 3.66 million shares. If that breakout triggers soon, then CPST will set up to re-test or possibly take out its next major overhead resistance levels at $1.42 to $1.45, or even $1.55 to $1.60.

• [By Rick Munarriz]

  Capstone Turbine (NASDAQ: CPST  ) -- $1.30
  Things are finally starting to happen for the microturbine maker. Revenue is growing at a healthy clip, and analysts see Capstone finally turning a quarterly profit later this year.

• [By Tyler Crowe and Aimee Duffy]

  Over the past couple weeks Capstone Turbine (NASDAQ: CPST  ) shares have launched into orbit on the news that the company had secured several orders for its microturbines. But 40% in a month? On the surface, it seems a bit silly that a company could gain that much on a couple news stories about sales. For a company like Capstone, which has struggled with sales, this kind of news is exactly what shareholders were looking for.

Best Cheap Companies To Invest In 2015: LifePoint Hospitals Inc.(LPNT)

LifePoint Hospitals Inc., through its subsidiaries, operates general acute care hospitals in non-urban communities in the United States. The company?s hospitals provide a range of medical and surgical services comprising general surgery, internal medicine, obstetrics, emergency room care, radiology, oncology, diagnostic care, coronary care, rehabilitation services, and pediatric services, as well as specialized services, such as open-heart surgery, skilled nursing, psychiatric care, and neuro-surgery. Its hospitals also offer outpatient services, including one-day surgery, laboratory, x-ray, respiratory therapy, imaging, sports medicine, and lithotripsy. As of December 31, 2009, LifePoint Hospitals owned or leased 47 hospitals with a total of 5,552 licensed beds in 17 states. The company was founded in 1997 and is headquartered in Brentwood, Tennessee. Lifepoint Hospitals Inc. (NasdaqNM:LPNT) operates independently of HCA Inc. as of May 11, 1999.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Ben Levisohn]

  Yesterday afternoon, Pennsylvania announced that it would use federal dollars to pay private insurers to cover eligible Pennsylvanians. UBS analysts A.J. Rice and Jailendra Singh think Community Health Systems (CYH), Tenet Healthcare (THC) and LifePoint Hospitals (LPNT) stand to benefit the most from the deal:

• [By Keith Speights]

  The fun wasn't just limited to the big three hospital operators. Lifepoint Hospitals (NASDAQ: LPNT  ) stock jumped 5% on the CMS news, reflecting a $109 million market cap expansion. Likewise, Vanguard Health Systems (NYSE: VHS  ) shares climbed 5%, bumping its market cap up by�$55 million.